Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Ouch!

The only way I can describe the process of getting my body back into decent shape is: Painful! Monday there was a lot of time spent on this:Several sets of single leg press left my legs shaking. Follow that up with wall sits and you can guarantee your legs will be pushed to exhaustion! And if for some reason that doesn't do it- add a 45lb plate to your lap for the final round. Hurts so good.

No rest for the weary. Tuesday called for a return of "Torrey Tuesday." Torrey Pines is the perfect place for hill repeats. At any time you'll find cyclists and runners trying to build strength by torturing themselves on Torrey (not a good pic of the hill, but this gives u a sense of the awesome scenery!). In order to finish the workout at a decent hour I had to start on the trainer. After 45mins of warming up it was time to get to the muscle building phase of the workout. 1x up the outside of the climb, 4x5mins HARD up the inside, then back to the outside to make sure the legs were good and tired.Up, down, Up, down, Up, down, Up, down, etc. etc. I honestly don't mind cranking out these workouts solo. Go hard or go home (which is often tempting since the hill is in my back yard). Before I could go home I had a tempo effort 60 minutes-o-fun. I think this was actually harder than the hill repeats.

As if my legs weren't tortured enough, there's a steeper hill in my neighborhood-perfect for running hill repeats. Mind over matter. By the time I crawled into bed I wasn't sure I'd be able to walk today. I let my arms do ALL the work in the pool this morning.

Until this morning I really didn't know what on earth I was training for. I wish I could just "train for life," but the reality is I live for race day. My mom often asks me "why can't you just workout out for good health. Ahhhh, rubbish! That's a nice benefit- but racing is the real reward. I'm super excited that this morning 2 races were added to the calendar: XTERRA Mission Gorge 15k trail run this weekend, and Palm Springs half marathon next. I can't express how happy this makes me! Stress relief is a necessity for me right now!